Best Catan Expansion Overall: Cities & Knights
Cities & Knights is a challenging fan-favorite Catan expansion. Among players, Cities & Knights is widely considered one of the best (if not the best) expansion; it adds new mechanics that give existing ones more substance. In C&K, players use a development flipchart to improve their cities via trade, politics, and science, unlocking new abilities with each improvement. Players can even turn their city into a metropolis for more resources and points. Other mechanics: Knights: Knights become the main defensive force for each player’s city (or metropolis), and players must use them strategically around the board to keep their cities safe. Barbarians: Barbarians can invade and conquer cities in this expansion—and the aforementioned knights are the key to keeping them in check. Pros: C&K introduces new mechanics and resources, encouraging more strategy and careful planning from players. Cons: Some players may be a little overwhelmed by all the mechanics—especially newer players.
Best Expansion to Add First: Seafarers
Seafarers is an easy-to-learn addition that expands the game’s scope. Want to explore the ocean surrounding Catan? With Seafarers, you can. The expansion adds more water tiles, additional islands (chosen at random each game) and shipping lanes, which essentially work like roads on the sea. It also adds the Pirate—which is like the Robber, but they roam the sea instead of the land. Pros: Seafarers doesn’t change the Catan rules much, making it an ideal first expansion for your game—especially for new players. It also makes the game feel a little different each time you play! Cons: Explorers & Pirates has some overlap with this expansion in terms of mechanics.
Best Customizable Expansion: Traders & Barbarians
Traders & Barbarians adds 5 scenarios to change up gameplay. Not only that, but it adds variant rules like the Friendly Robber (which makes the robber less punishing), Event Cards to replace the game’s dice, Harbormaster, which introduces a harbor-building mechanic, and rules to play Catan with 2 players. In short, it makes Catan more versatile—and each game feels unique! The 5 scenarios are: Fisherman of Catan: In this module, players collect fish as resources by building settlements near the ocean or lake tiles. With fish, you can get rid of the robber, steal resources, and build roads or gain development cards. Rivers of Catan: This module adds river tiles to the island of Catan, and players can earn coins by building roads and settlements along the river. Players can spend coins for resources, or hoard them for bonus points. The Caravans: Players can turn roads and settlements into caravans and add camels to their settlements to gain more points. Barbarian Attack: In this module, barbarians attack Catan and conquer settlements—so players must recruit knights to defend their land and capture any raiders. Traders & Barbarians: This scenario gives each player a wagon, with which they can pick up and deliver goods to earn money throughout the game and steadily improve trade by connecting more roads. Pros and cons: The sheer amount of new modules and mechanics in this expansion add a ton of replay value to Catan—but, on the other hand, they also make the game more complex.
Best Expansion for Larger Groups: 5-6 Player Extension
The 5-6 Player Expansion turns Catan into a better party game. The 5-6 Player Extension is a must-have if you want to play Catan with more than 4 players (which is the limit in the base game). The extension adds more player pieces, terrain tiles, and harbors, along with an extra build phase in each player’s turn to accommodate more players, while the game’s basic rules stay the same. Pros: It adds simple but effective mechanics to the game and makes the game bigger to allow for 5 to 6 players. Cons: Catan games usually take longer with more players, since there are more turns to go through.
Best Expansion for Exploration: Explorers & Pirates
Explorers & Pirates adds new islands, ports, and currencies to the game. Explorers & Pirates adds 3 new modules to Catan, which you can use separately or together. In E&P, players start on a small island and must uncover the rest of the board by building ships, exploring, and finding resources to build settlements on undiscovered tiles. They can also fulfill tasks to score points, which include fighting pirates, trading spices, and delivering fish. Pros: It’s a very large expansion, and no other Catan add-on prioritizes discovery and exploration as much. It works a lot like Seafarers, but it’s a little more complex and in-depth. Cons: The additional mechanics and scenarios can make for longer games overall.
Best Narrative Expansion: Legend of the Conquerors
Legend of the Conquerors adds a structured story to Catan’s gameplay. If you’re a fan of narrative games like D&D, you might enjoy Legend of the Conquerors which adds a narrative feature that isn’t part of the other Catan expansions. LotC adds chapter-based scenarios to the game and a narrative reason for playing: the island of Catan may soon fall to foreign conquerors, and players must strategize to defend their territory. Pros: LotC makes Catan feel like a brand new game, even for long-time players, with new developments and narrative challenges throughout the game. Cons: Its narrative focus means LotC can take much longer than an average game of Catan, and it requires both the base game and Cities & Knights to play.
Best Cooperative Expansion: Crop Trust Scenario
Crop Trust encourages players to work together while playing. Catan is a competitive game, but Crop Trust changes the formula a little. Although still competitive, it adds semi-cooperative rules wherein players must balance the goal of harvesting their own crops with the collective goal of storing seeds in a seed vault. Pros: It adds a cooperative element to Catan, which can be fun for players who prefer cooperative games to purely competitive ones. Cons: It may not be as fun for players who enjoy competition in games.
Best Expansion for Fantasy Fans: Treasures, Dragons & Adventurers
Treasures, Dragons & Adventurers adds fantastic creatures and exploration to Catan. Treasures, Dragons & Adventurers is a smaller expansion that adds a lot of value. With this expansion, you can build your own scenarios, modify existing ones, and expand on the exploration element of Seafarers by adventuring to remote islands, uncovering treasure, and facing down mythical beasts. Pros: It adds a considerable number of new features and scenarios (and dragons!) to the game. Cons: It requires both Seafarers and Cities & Knights to play. It may also be complicated for new players.
Best Mini-Expansion: Helpers of Catan
Helpers introduces new character cards with useful powers to the game. Helpers is a mini-expansion; it doesn’t change Catan significantly; it simply adds a new deck of cards called helper cards to the game. Helper cards grant players new, minor powers that can only be used once or twice; players can choose a new one after using a helper. Each power can help players carry out their plans throughout the game. Pros: It’s less expensive, easy to store, and offers Catan more versatility without adding overly complex rules. Cons: Because it’s a mini-expansion, Helpers has no new game pieces or tiles.
Best Expansion for Sports Fans: Soccer Fever Scenario
In Soccer Fever Scenario, winning soccer games grants players victory points. This unusual expansion adds soccer to the world of Catan! Each time players build a settlement, they must also play a soccer game—and the winner gets victory points, which can help them win the entire game. Although it’s a little niche, Soccer Fever is the perfect expansion for soccer fans. Pros: It adds a simple mechanic to the base gameplay, keeping things interesting without changing the game’s structure too much. Cons: People who don’t like sports (or soccer) may not enjoy this expansion.
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